


Mu

by melannen



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Other, Service, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A monk asked Jõshû, "Has a dog the Buddha Nature?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mu

**Author's Note:**

> For a dresden_kink prompt: For some reason (and I'm guessing Lea), Mouse gets turned into a human. I'd like to see how this plays out, how his interactions with Harry and everyone else translate from canine. Is he as tall as Harry? Does he still lick his wizard when he's saying hello? What happens if they run into someone that poses a threat?

Dresden arrived at our meeting on time, for once, but not alone - there was a man shadowing him a few steps behind and to the left, standard guard position. I was fairly sure I'd never seen the man before - and I would have remembered if I had; he was _huge_ ; not quite tall enough to loom over Dresden properly, but with all the muscle mass that the wizard lacked, and a tight T-shirt that showed it off well. He had shaggy dark hair, spilling over keen eyes, and a generally Asian cast to his features that I couldn't quite pin an ethnicity on.

"Baron Marcone," Dresden nodded, and we went through our by-now familiar greeting ritual; when we'd finished establishing territory, I turned to Dresden's glowering companion.

"You're a friend of Wizard Dresden, I assume?" I asked him politely, offering my hand. With another man of my own sort, I would have pretended he was the bodyguard he appeared and politely allowed the illusion that I was ignoring his presence; but I could not imagine Dresden changing enough to permit himself subordinates of that sort-- or of ever learning to treat them as scenery if he did.

Dresden's companion, however, responded by curling his lips and growling at me. I barely restrained myself from growling back in response; I can manage a mean growl when I need to.

"Oh, stars and _stones_ ," Dresden sighed. "Don't mind him, Marcone, he never did learn to shake hands properly. What is up with you?" he added to the big man. "It's like cats and dogs. Only worse. You actually get along with Mister."

"I can trust Mister," he replied in a deep, gravelly voice.

Dresden just stared at him. "You can trust Mister? To do what? Leave a mess on the kitchen floor?"

"To be true to his cat nature."

Dresden slapped a hand across his eyes. "I am going to be _so_ tired of Buddhist philosophy before this is over. Just... think of him as my bodyguard, Marcone. My _entirely unnecessary, overprotective_ bodyguard."

The big man crossed his arms and said, "You never minded before." He had such a familiar air of long-suffering care that I found my gaze drifting involuntarily to Hendricks, who was sitting in a corner booth with an eyeline on the door, nursing a strawberry milkshake.

"Yeah, but then it was _different_ ," Dresden muttered.

"How?" he asked.

"Oh, hell's bells!" Dresden said. "Just - go keep Cujo company, okay? I need to get through this quickly and you're not helping. Just try not to get into any pissing contests with him, okay?"

"Oh, don't worry, Boss," the 'bodyguard' said, as he sauntered off toward Hendricks' corner, thumbs through his beltloops, "That sort of thing is your job."

"Having personnel issues?" I asked with a raised eyebrow or two.

"Just - just don't ask. _Please_ ," Dresden said, and as I'm not, fundamentally, a cruel man, I didn't.

He must have had something else going on, though, because he really did work at getting our business taken care of as efficiently as possible. Hendricks and the bodyguard seemed to be getting on like a housefire, though. I glanced over into their corner once and for a second thought they were sharing the milkshake, an outcome, let's be honest, far less likely than the housefire, though a second glance revealed they just had their heads together in intense discussion.

Finally Dresden and I wrapped up our business, and the wizard made a peremptory "come" gesture to his companion, who rose from the booth with smooth, practiced obedience, followed by Hendricks.

The short ride back to the office it was obvious that Hendricks was vibrating with the need to tell me something, but I waited until we'd left the car to speak to him. I was pondering possibilities: it was clear that Dresden was quite familiar with the stranger, and had probably worked with him before; close bonds can form quickly in stressful circumstances, but it was odd that I'd not heard so much as a rumor of the man. Maybe they'd met in the Nevernever, in one of the streams where time flowed at odd angles?

"All right," I said to Hendricks finally. "Just tell me he hasn't made a deal with the Rakshasas," I said. "Or the Yakuza, for that matter."

"Nope!" said Hendricks cheerfully. "That was Mouse."

It took a few clicks for me to make the connection. "That part dog, part Clydesdale he lives with? What, was he secretly a handsome prince under a curse all this time?"

Hendricks gave me a look. "Don't be ridiculous. Apparently there was something involving Dresden's fairy godmother and an intercepted transformation spell. It'll wear off in 72 hours, he said, and in the meantime he's not letting unexpected opposable thumbs interfere with his duties."

"Of course. Dresden's fairy godmother turned his dog into a human. I should have thought of that immediately; why do I always leap to the complicated explanations first?"

"Good question, boss," said Hendricks. "Hey, do you think they're sleeping together? On the one hand, Mouse is his dog, but that didn't stop him from being really obvious about West back in the day. And, unlike _certain people_ , he's never seemed to suffer from overactive scruples about dependency and consent. Plus, on the other hand, speaking objectively, you have to admit: Phwoar!"

I wasn't going to touch that one. Hendricks knows that there are some things that I simply cannot afford to confront openly. But he also knows it's his job not to let me get complacent, so he's never, quite, stopped pushing.

"Is that why you still let Dresden call you Cujo?" I asked instead. "And let him treat you the way you do?"

"But I am my Lord's faithful dog."

I spun grabbed him by the shoulders, pushed him against the corridor wall. He let me do it, of course. "Don't _ever_ call yourself that," I said. "You are so much more--"

He looked down at me, all softness in his eyes, in the broad strokes of his neck, and said quietly: "Would you prefer 'I am the Baron's hound, to lie at the Baron's feet?"

I couldn't afford to answer that one either. I let go, took a deep breath, turned away. "What did you and Mouse talk about so intently, anyway?"

"The nature of nonexistence and will."

I wasn't even going to try to make an intelligent comment on that one. "Smart dog?" I asked.

"I asked him whether dogs had the Buddha nature," Hendricks said, and answered my ignorance by adding, "It's one of the most famous of the Zen koans. The traditional answer is most often translated as, essentially, 'null', but there's enough cultural shift, deliberate ambiguity, and inherent unknowability that the interpretation can still be questioned. I thought he might actually know the answer."

"And what did he say?"

"'Does a human have the Buddha nature?'"

"Ah. Good answer," I said.

"That answer's actually a lot closer to traditional Western modes of dialectic than what we Westerners expect from Zen-type philosophies, but of course Mouse has had at least as much influence from Dresden's sort of muscular post-Christian humanism."

"It's good to know you're making other friends. And I mean that with utmost sincerity."

Hendricks laughed at me, gently. "He's agreed to look over the chapter in my thesis comparing Jamesian epistemology with Mahayana meditative practices, on the strict understanding that he never had the full training. We're meeting on my half-day next week."

"I'll make sure I don't hold you at work late," I said, and went three more steps before I realized, "Wait, that's Thursday. Didn't you say the spell would wear off in less than three days?"

Hendricks shrugged. "Why, you think that's gonna be a problem?"

**Author's Note:**

> Hendricks mangles quotes from Barrayar and Eagle of the Ninth in there. I decided I could get away with it on the basis that the Bujold books and the Eagle movie are the sorts of things they might very well know, and also, I really wanted to.


End file.
